Best of British 2012

For the last two decades, the death knell of vinyl has been sounded annually. Usurped by CDs, rendered obsolete by the all-consuming march of iTunes and Beatport, there seems little rational reason why those heavy, fragile slabs of black wax should endure so long.

“Time is always my biggest battle,” states voice of the dance music nation, Pete Tong. “Finding the time to do it all and have the right head space to listen to so much music, you have to be on the case!” And he certainly was on the case again in 2012, picking up the DJ Mag gong for Best Radio Show for his tireless work on the Essential Selection each and every week.

The Northern Irish duo capture the zeitgeist with their NJ house flavour The schoolfriends from Belfast known as Bicep (Matt McBriar, 25, and Andy Ferguson, 24) have been DJing together since their early teens; since the young scallywags got themselves fake IDs and started sneaking into their hometown's techno bastion, Shine.

Inspired by new music, touting a fresh label, Sasha is still at the vanguard. He isn't one for nostalgia. It makes him feel “a bit weird”, he says. Fair enough.

A lot has changed since DJ Mag first witnessed Orlando Higginbottom wearing a dinosaur onesie hunched over a laptop at London's Cargo in 2007. In those days, his show (aside from pre-historic attire of course) was mostly about the music. Not that it isn't the case today. However, major label (Polydor) backing, Nokia sponsorship and an album that peaked at No.35 in the UK album chart to one side, few would deny that his live show is close to becoming the brightest string to his bow — especially now.

Orlando Higginbottom, the fresh-faced 26-year-old behind Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, is part of a growing scene of British producers who’ve forged crossover success from their experiments in the meeting place of house, garage and pop.

To say Jessie Ware’s had a good year would be rather an understatement. Her diva vocals, that hark back to a golden era of house and draw comparisons with Sade and Donna Summer, have found increasing favour with the UK bass scene’s underground producers and, like Katy B before her, garnered a Mercury nomination.

Care, consideration and caution are not always words associated with the fleeting world of dance music. DJs and promoters springing up and disappearing quicker than Eats Everything can guzzle a pint of the black stuff, it's tempting for the next pretty young thing getting hyped to high heaven to go for broke; rush out a series of half-finished tracks off their hard drive and sit back and wait for that cash-money to roll in. Not Bashmore.

Remember a time when Bristol wasn’t part of the Holy Grail with London and Berlin as a triumvirate of electronic cool? No, us neither, but that was the case around seven years ago, with the glowing embers of a once great d&b scene the only thing to really be keeping the city on the map at all.

Larry Levan's NY mecca might be gone (not forgotten), but The Garage is already the place on Leeds' lips less than 10 months in...

In 2012 it seems that Fabric’s biggest competitor has been the new phenomenon of ‘TBA’. From overground electro to underground techno parties, promoters in the capital have been looking to keep their parties fresh by exploring as many unused venues as possible and simply listing them as To Be Announced right up until the last minute.

To the uninitiated, Groove Armada's return to making underground house music might appear something of a change in direction. It is, of course, nothing of the sort. Andy Cato and Tom Findlay have found themselves, thanks to a solid decade of commercial success, stuffed clumsily into all manner of pigeon holes; from dance-pop to pop-dance to chill-out to stadium-dance to ragga-dance and any number of other sub genres you might care to mention.

He might be able to knock out badass tunes, but Bristol boy Eats Everything is, in his heart, a DJ first and foremost (or husband if his new wife is reading!). What’s more, the man born Daniel Pearce has been doing it for exactly 20 years now, having gotten his first decks for Christmas back in 1992.